Doki Doki Literature Club

This article spoils Doki Doki Literature Club in the first sentence, it presupposes you’ve played it, and goes on to spoil the narrative tricks the game uses to make its story meaningful. So if you haven’t played the game, get it (it’s free),make a pot of coffee, set aside four hours, play it, and then come back here and read this. Like the dentist, it’s…

What if your favorite game got removed from Steam, but nobody seemed to notice? That’s what happened to Muv-Luv Alternative, a nigh-hundred-hour visual novel from Japanese developers Age that some have called the magnum opus of the genre. It’s currently the highest-rated title on the Visual Novel Database, barely eclipsing the better-known Steins;Gate. But in January, the censored non-18+ version of the game disappeared from…

We've already seen which games sold best on Steam last year, but a perhaps more meaningful insight into movin' and a-shakin' in PC-land is the games that people feel warmest and snuggliest about. To that end, Valve have announced the winners of the 2017 Steam Awards, a fully community-voted affair which names the most-loved games across categories including best post-launch support, most player agency, exceeding…

We players like to be in charge of our games. We save before boss battles. We watch how our choices change the story flow. Many of us know how to access game data if needed. Most of all, we like knowing we've out-smarted the game. And there's no easier style of game to out-smart than a dating sim. Right? Japanese-style dating games often stick to…